On a day that started brightly for Team Nigeria’s duo of Funke Oshonaike and Offiong Edem, it ended on a disappointing note as the duo was shown the exit in Round 1 of the women’s Singles Table Tennis event at the ongoing Rio Olympic Games in Brazil.
Oshonaike who is Nigeria’s flag bearer at the Games, lost 4-2 to her Cuban opponent Adriana Diaz, while Edem who although went down to Belarusian, Victoria Pavlovich by 4-1, will take solace in the fact that she was able to hold her own against No.57 on the ITTF World List.
Both women had earlier in the day won their Preliminary matches, with Oshonaike taking a 4-3 victory over Mariana Sahakian of Lebanon, while Offiong had a better draw, thereby cruising over 15-year old Sally Yee of the Fiji Islands.
This will be a disappointing outing for six-time Olympian Oshonaike because at London 2012, she bowed out at this stage of the competition. She would have hoped for a better outing in Rio to end her illustrious career.
Meanwhile other African representatives were also shown the door, as the Egyptian duo of Dina Meshref and Nadeen El-Dawlatly lost to Thailand’s Nanthana Komwony and Hungary’s Petra Lovas by 4-1 and 4-0 respectively. Congo’s Xing Han was also unlucky, losing 4-3 to Thailand’s Suthasini Sawettabut.
